virtualmusic.TV » comparison

2010 Music Website Heat Map

Ryan Van Etten — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 06:42:02 +0000

If you’re red-green color blind then this is going to hurt. Based on estimated traffic data from Compete, this visualization depicts web-based music consumption in the U.S. in 2010. Included are websites where music is streamed and/or downloaded. Due to accurate sample rate availability (and in the interest of sanity) websites with less than 100,000 monthly visits are omitted. The map is to scale. Larger map areas represent higher website traffic. Green indicates positive growth in 2010. Red indicates negative growth in 2010. Hold your mouse over each area for stats—the visits/month stats are for December 2010. For those that don’t speak metric: 1k = 1,000. 1M = 1,000,000.

There’s a lot of green—as a whole music consumption on the web is clearly increasing. One contributing factor to that is that the percentage of people that have internet access is growing. Notably extreme growth occurred for SoundCloud, OurStage, Bandcamp, Grooveshark, and ReverbNation. It’s understandable why SoundCloud is rocketing—it offers rock-solid tools, widgets, community, and an API. In summer 2010, SoundCloud launched a Creative Commons search page. Like Indaba Music, SoundCloud is heavily geared towards electronic music and producers. IMO electronic music is growing faster than rock and has more room to evolve. In my analysis of the 2009 heat map, I referred to Grooveshark as Jaws-like and this year was another feeding frenzy. Grooveshark now gets more visits than Last.fm. But let’s zoom out and view the bigger picture:

In February 2010, Sysomos reported that approximately 31% of YouTube videos are music—roughly one out of every three. The YouTube Music area on the map below represents this 31%. Its size is roughly equivalent to 3x everything else combined. Compared to YouTube, Grooveshark is a minnow. You want pop perspective? According to the Compete data, ladygaga.com had more visits in 2010 than any other artist, and although her traffic decreased 55% over the year, she still gets 5x as much traffic as nin.com. According to data from Next Big Sound, Lady Gaga videos got played 45 million times on Vevo* in December 2010. Dividing that number by the 2 million unique visitors that Compete estimated for Vevo that month tells us that the average Vevo user watches 23 Lady Gaga videos per month. Scream now if you have to. Who had the most visited website at the end of the year? I thought is was going to be paramore.net, who with over 400,000 website visits in December 2010 had Eminem, Bieber, and Gaga all beat. But it was taylorswift.com who had the most, with close to 600,000—that’s like half of Bandcamp right there.

// spreadsheet // cruncher: ryanve

It was unrealistic to accurately quantify MySpace Music this year* but if you remember from last year MySpace Music was in the same ballpark as Pandora. MySpace’s Imeem acquisition came to life, but, still, I can’t imagine they saw positive growth in 2010 since visits to MySpace proper declined 77% in 2010 according to Compete. Then there’s iTunes which is essentially not web-based and therefore unquantifiable on Compete. The itunes.apple.com subdomain used mainly for iTunes links including everything on iTunes—not just music—saw 60% growth in 2010. If it were on the map it would be 40% as big as Pandora.

Comparing relative differences as a whole paints a pretty solid picture of music consumption on the web—but it’s not a total reflection. Compete tracks web traffic from sources in the U.S. and therefore European-based services are not as accurately estimated. The same goes for certain mobile or non-web usage. Case in point: Spotify is included on the map but maybe it shouldn’t be—it’s a downloadable app like iTunes and Americans can’t use it. Google currently assigns Spotify a PageRank of 7. It assigns SoundCloud a PageRank of 6. Is Spotify that widely used or does it just get tons of press? Is Playlist so huge because it offers ringtones—anyone using it? Rdio? What will the map look like next year?

Bonus tracks: Right now The Pirate Bay gets as much traffic as MTV.com. Based on its current trajectory Pandora will soon surpass The New York Times. The most popular music magazine online is Rolling Stone—2.2M visits in December 2010. The most popular music blog is Pitchfork—1.4M visits in December 2010—like two Hype Machines. NPR is in the same ballpark as Last.fm.

Update 3/20: Based on requests to add additional sites to the heat map, there is now an alternate edition on page two that includes 8tracks and We Are Hunted rather than Thumbplay and Deezer. All are now on the data table. Regarding Lady Gaga’s 45 million plays, Colin—presumably Colin Willis from Next Big Sound—commented that Next Big Sound’s Vevo play count included Vevo plays from YouTube and therefore the 23 Lady Gaga videos per month calculation is inaccurate.

URL Change: MF or VM?

Ryan Van Etten — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 04:05:15 +0000

“If you want to build a brand, you should own the .COM domain.”
–Chris Vinson/Bandzoogle.com

I consider my URL selection of virtualmusic.tv as a minor fail. Of course when I launched the site in July 2009 I thought it was brilliant, but truly, only hindsight is 20/20. Last summer a conversation with Bandzoogle founder Chris Vinson helped confirmed in my mind that the URL choice of virtualmusic.tv was not ideal for the core reason above—it’s no .COM.

There are of course plenty of .TV urls that work well: e.g. motherboard.tv, jawbone.tv, or justin.tv. Many people like .TV for video sites because it’s the abbreviation for television. Yet the .TV extension is actually the country extension for Tuvalu—a tiny group of islands in the Pacific that even smarter-than-5th-grader adults can’t locate on a map.

Aside from the extension, there are other issues. Due to MMORPGs, people increasingly associate the word “virtual” with virtual worlds, which is not what this site is about. This site is about online music culture and the technology that surrounds it. It’s about pushing the music industry forward.

Doesn’t the name ‘Music Flux’ align better with the content? Music culture and business will always be in a state of flux, right? (Other ideas?)

Like ‘digital music,’ the phrase ‘virtual music’ is somewhat of a generic word pair, making it hard to show up at the top of Google search results. One solid formula for a strong unique URL is:

(keyword) + (2nd word or keyword not typically phrased with 1st word) + .COM

e.g. ticket + fly + .COM

e.g. band + zoogle + .COM

e.g. sound + cloud + .COM

A name change can be a damaging blow if executed poorly or done for the wrong reasons. I’ve tried here to present a solid case for a URL change. I think musicflux.com is more descriptive, unique, memorable, and stronger as a brand identity. Do you? I’d really appreciate your input in the poll below and in the comments…because I don’t want to F it up. (Note: Functionality-wise the change for readers would be pretty seamless, as all existing links and feeds would redirect.)

virtualmusic.tv/polls/

Thank you! // More end of the year 2010 analysis is on deck.

Update 1/17/2010: We’re not changing it.

Price Point Game

Ryan Van Etten — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 21:17:54 +0000

The median price point on RocketHub…and other crowdfunding platforms for that matter…is 20 bucks. … Make your $20 price point really jump off the shelf. –Brian Meece, RocketHub co-founder.

Crowdfunding website RocketHub was launched in January 2010 by three musicians/entrepreneurs—Brian Meece, Vladimir Vukicevic, and Jed Cohen. (tonic.com) Meece was speaking above in his August 2010 interview with CDBaby podcaster Kevin Breuner. Meece continued with more details:

“The single most popular price point on RocketHub, by far, across the board, is $20. So what that means is make your $20 price point really jump off the shelf. Make it really exciting, make it really fun, because that’s what you’re going to move the most of likely. Another very popular price point is the $100 price point, which I also found very intriguing. The $100 price point typically are folks that have built up a lot of trust, or have been following you a little longer. They may be inner-circle folks, you know, your Uncle Bobby from Texas that loves everything that you do and buys 20 of your CD’s everytime they come out, but, you know just loves the fact that he’s got a nephew who’s making records. That’s where he’s probably gonna’ land. You’d be surprised who lands there, but it’s a very, very popular price point. … As a result the average contribution, it hovers day to day, but it’s in about the upper $50s. $57–$59 is the average across the board. So that’s very interesting because when we look at that average number, we could start to say if I wanna’ hit $500, then I need about 8–12 people to really hit that number—not a lot.” (CDBaby Podcast #098)

Guided by my own DIY business rule #6, I don’t need to waste time or money researching market price points for people who buy music. There’s already a company who’s perfected them—Apple:

2010 Apple iPod price comparison (source: apple.com)

Earlier this year Shamal Ranasinghe (@shamalman) presented marketing data from TopSpin Media at MIDEM 2010 in Cannes, France in series of slides. This one displays the advantage of selling at every price point—everything from frequent cheap buys to rare premium package deals:

“Consider Premium Offers”—slide 11. (source: Topspin Media)

On tour » another issue to consider is that location changes value/price.

Graphics: iPod, Topspin, and ‘price shuffle‘ graphics were remixed by RVE.

Location vs. Cost: Touring U.S. Cities

Ryan Van Etten — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 01:31:56 +0000

What’s normal in New York is not normal in Fargo. Location changes costs. You’re in a touring band? You might want to consider this when booking shows and pricing merch/tickets. Expect higher expenses in the more expensive cities, but at the same time, expect fans to be willing to pay relatively more. Raise your prices accordingly. In less expensive cities, drop your prices. To help gauge the spectrum, here’s a comparison of living costs in 100 U.S. cities that may be on your tour map. I’m not saying go crazy, I mean, focus on the music and the fans, but for example, if you’re selling your CD in Austin for $12, why not up it to $15 in New York and drop it to $10 in Tulsa? Or experiment with varying pay-what-you-want minimums.

U.S. Cost of Living Comparison: an infographic comparing estimated livings costs in 100 cities based on military BAH rates and categorized by region; West, Midwest, Northeast, and South. The ten most expensive cities or metro areas are New York, San Francisco, Long Island, Boston, New Haven, Northern New Jersey, Los Angeles, San Diego, Washington DC, and Baltimore. Many of the most expensive cities (shown in dark purple) are located in California or the Northeast. (Image: virtualmusictv/Flickr)

While not exactly proportional, it’s reasonably assumed that entertainment spending goes up with housing spending. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that for the average American in 2009, 5.5% of total spending was on entertainment and 34.4% was on housing—both down slightly from 2008. The funny thing though is that online retailers don’t (or can’t) change their price based on location like a merch booth can. An mp3 from iTunes costs the same from no matter where you buy it, right? The same goes for almost everything else you buy online—with the exception of shipping rates. Any bands out there already doing price variation or pay what you want on the road? Any stories from the most expensive or cheapest places you’ve ever toured?

Facebook More Traffic Than Google [Stats]

Ryan Van Etten — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 04:09:42 +0000

Here’s some perspective on Facebook’s growth with estimated data from Quantcast and Compete. The numbers are significantly different between the sources but the basic trend and relative traffic difference between Facebook and Google is evident: Facebook is a rocket, or, rather a full-blown planet with enough gravity to start a galaxy—the data shows it surpassed Google in traffic in late 2009.

Facebook vs. Google (Quantcast data)

Source: Quantcast.com

Facebook vs. Google (Compete data)

Source: Compete.com

Illustration: Facebook Friendwheel by jahw/Flickr

Censorship and Media In An Expanding Internet Population—Do You Feel Censored On The ‘Net?

Ryan Van Etten — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 20:41:40 +0000

Blocking sites = blocking progress. I’m American. It’s hard to imagine über-restricted Internet surfing. In the U.S. internet censorship does exist in workplaces, libraries, and schools but U.S. censorship is minimal compared to Chinese censorship. Censored sites in China include wikipedia.org, amnesty.org, nasa.gov, digg.com, bbc.co.uk, cnn.com, guardian.co.uk, facebook.com, flickr.com, tumblr.com, wordpress.com, youtube.com, and—WTF—even disney.com is censored (view data at Information is Beautiful). Sites are either completely blocked, or “unwanted” content is filtered out by keyword.

Censorship is the suppression of speech or deletion of communicative material which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient to the government or media organizations as determined by a censor. (Wikipedia: Censorship)

Google and China. Google’s motto is “Don’t be evil.” While often times in life a fine line exists—I can’t help but view internet censorship on the dark side. I hope that Google continues to act proactively against internet censorship in China, and the world. Unbiased information is fundamental to social and intellectual progress. People can handle the truth. Blocking sites means blocking progress. Attempting to “control” the Internet defies logic. Privacy and security are huge issues.

Image: flickr/the-g-uk

Counter-censorship technology. One could argue that censorship inhibits innovation. But censorship has forced people to invent counter-censorship technologies. Imagine what bright determined minds could be inventing without being held back by internet censorship.

More than a million people in China, including human rights activists and expatriates, are using special software to circumvent the nation’s complex online censorship system, known as the “Great Firewall.” This has created a booming market for software companies, which are capitalizing on the growing desire of China’s Internet users to fanqiang, or scale the wall, to visit Web sites like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. (The New York Times)

Proxy servers that route traffic outside of blocked networks are one viable solution as long as they are not blocked themselves—e.g. HideMyAss.com works in the U.S. See Mashable, Randomwire, GigaOM, and Wikipedia for anti-censorship resources and ideas.

Let’s not be clueless. In my opinion censoring information—whether by government, institution, workplace—is an ultimate form of disrespect. I take it personally. If the question is “why” then is the answer “fear?” Are censors afraid of people’s reaction to the truth? Here’s the bright side—think about traditional news mediums like television, radio, or newspaper, and realize that the Internet is by far the most democratic and unbiased information medium in history. That’s the whole point—internet media needs to echo reality. We’re moving in the right direction—bloggers and citizen journalists are multiplying. More people worldwide are gaining internet access. Northern Europe and North America currently have the highest per capita internet usage. Global access is accelerating.

Social Rocks. Mobility Rolls. Music Trends 2009–2010.

Ryan Van Etten — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 00:12:54 +0000

Pandora is blowing music consumption off the grid. Myriad digital choices are sending audio junkies into sensory overload—music wants to be everywhere.

Bloodred Erik Unedited by Luminis Kanto on Flickr

Shareability and community spin music in the social web. Pandora and Last.fm’s widely popular iPhone apps encourage users to share songs they like with their friends as they’re listening to them. Grooveshark’s web interface heavily encourages sharing, and its integration with Twitter via Twisten.fm and Tinysong have helped fuel its rapid growth in 2009. Nearly all of today’s free (ad-supported) streaming sites include links to purchase mp3′s via iTunes or Amazon. Vevo has them, but, YouTube—arguably the largest and most engaging music streaming site—does not.

The Delicious user base has a relatively high concentration of developers, designers, techies, nerds, etc.—individuals likely to have above-average internet savvy. As a group they are an acute filter for quality content. The chart below shows the popularity of the same music websites based on data from Delicious. You can see there is some divergence from the traffic heat map. The most notable difference is MySpace Music, which showed the highest website traffic, but shows the lowest Delicious rank. Pandora is the top-bookmarked music site on Delicious by far, with last.fm second, and Grooveshark climbing quickly. Pandora is also the top-ranked music site on Xmarks.

Musicians—many are at the center of the social mix lifecasting on Twitter, Ustream, YouTube, Facebook, and MySpace. They’re communicating like never before, and evolving the industry. Revenue comes in new forms. The urge to be “indie” is contagious. The amplifiers are on.

Mobility Rolls.

Top Free iPhone Music Apps

Techcrunch reports Pandora registers 600k new users/week and half of them come from mobile devices. GigaOM reports Pandora is driving towards car radio integration.

Seven of the top twelve are radio/streaming apps. But smartphones are not just for listening to music. Gigzee is an events app—a location-aware tool for finding shows/concerts in your area. With more people on smartphones, more people can take advantage of location-based services like this. Music creation apps like Virtuoso Piano, Drum Kit, freestyle, NLog Synth, Digidrummer, Looptastic, and Jamble Music Mashups are wildly popular. Every human is an artist in some way—as technology improves more people will find themselves creating, and collaborating remotely. Who’s at center stage now? Creative Commons-released music encourages open remixing via sites like JamGlue, ccMixter, Indaba Music, Jamendo, SoundCloud, and more. Maybe influenced by NIN, many musicians are releasing audio source files for open remixing, fan remix contests, remix apps, or fan music videos.

Music Gaming

Music games are going mobile fast—especially rhythm games. Rock Band came to the iPhone, as did DanceDanceRevolution, Hip Hop All Star, new versions of Guitar Rock Tour, and TapTapRevenge.

Reuters reports that Tap Tap Revenge has now been installed 20+ million times. New games releases in 2009 included The Beatles Rock Band and DJ Hero, but neither have mobile apps, yet. Harmonix rolled out Rock Band Network—an platform that will let indie musicians get their music in the game. Better mobile graphics are coming—it’s only a matter of time before we see mobile apps that let players interact with music in virtual worlds like Second Life or with real-life live concert streams. And this trailer for Guitar Rock Tour 2…well…you get the idea—Happy New Year. Rock on!

2009 Music Website Heat Map

Ryan Van Etten — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 08:56:05 +0000

Based on estimated traffic data from compete.com, this visualization compares November 2009 website visits for 27 popular, legal, music stream-or-download destinations. The heat map is to scale—larger map areas represent higher website traffic. Green indicates positive growth in 2009. Red indicates negative growth in 2009. Hold your mouse over each area for stats. Use Ctrl + to zoom.

Pandora is the radio powerhouse, but MySpace Music, disturbingly, has the highest traffic, and MySpace acquired both Imeem and iLike this year. iTunes is omitted here because it’s not web-based—yet—but clearly it is widely used. The top three percentage gainers were Grooveshark, Lala, and Spotify. Grooveshark has shown the most consistent growth throughout the year, and let me tell you I think it’s going to be a Jaws-like monster (especially when it goes mobile). It delivers free full-on cloud-based streaming and user uploads. Grooveshark’s iPhone app is pending Apple’s approval, but I wonder if Apple will be reluctant to approve it because it would be sharp competition with iTunes and their newly acquired Lala. It’s no surprise that Google was also looking to buy Lala—maybe they’ll turn to bite Grooveshark. Grooveshark’s minimalistic home page is even Google-esque, and there’s something to be said for simple design. Being curious as to mobile applications’ influence on website traffic, I listed available mobile apps with the sortable data below.

Virtual Video Revolution in The Beatles Rock Band

Ryan Van Etten — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:30:45 +0000

The Beatles rock on in 2009 and players of The Beatles Rock Band have posted YouTube videos to show it. Here you can compare a video of Revolution from the videogame with the video of Revolution performed by The Beatles in 1968. ♫

It looks like a new generation of Beatlemaniacs could be on the rise—wouldn’t you say? Thanks to YouTubers kevineseri0 and ponkiejp for the videos and to voteprime on Flickr for the peace sign photo displayed on the homepage. Thanks for watching—please share this post if you like it. :)